Sorry about the blog break. Gweneth and I planned to spend a week in the US – her to visit her folks in Philadelphia, and me to attend the American Economic Association meetings. But the day after we landed, I came down with a bad case of salmonella poisoning, and spent four days in hospital. We flew back today.

The hospital stint was, I think I can safely say, the four most boring and painful days of my life. Not to mention expensive. The bill isn’t in yet, but I think the stay will end up costing ANU’s travel insurer somewhere well over $10k (for anyone travelling personally, a health insurance-only policy like this is definitely worth buying).

I did find one thing interesting. When they were trying to work out whether to give me morphine-type painkillers, some nurses asked for my pain on a 0-10 scale, where 10 was the worst pain imaginable. Others put 10 as the worst pain you’ve ever experienced. Having not gone through childbirth or a colonoscopy, I could quite readily rate myself a 10 on the second scale, but not on the first scale. Which made me wonder, what’s the right pain scale to use?